The Hinton Parklander – Martin Wissmath
Monday, October 14th, 2013
Mayors In the Yellowhead region signed an agreement last week to coordinate their efforts to reduce waste.
Hinton Mayor Ian Duncan, Edson Mayor Greg Pasychny, Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland and Yellowhead County Mayor Gerald Soroka gathered at the Hinton Government Centre with representatives from the four municipalities for a lunch barbecue Oct. 9 followed by a signing in the main foyer.
The agreement expands the mandate of the West Yellowhead Regional Waste Management Authority to commit to recycling and reducing waste. It also brings the municipality of Jasper onboard as a full internal member of the waste management authority with voting rights. Previously Jasper was an external member and customer.
“We thought, ‘Why do we restrict their voting?'” said Mike Schwirtz, Hinton’s infrastructure services director. While Jasper didn’t have to pay to provide capital funding for the group, they did have to pay a higher per tonnage fee for bringing waste to the West Yellowhead Regional Landfill on Highway 40 South, Schwirtz explained.
Jasper Invested $250,000 of capital funding as part of t he agreement, Schwirtz added. But with the lower per tonnage fee ($30 for full members, $48 for customers), they’ll be saving about $50,000 a year.
Schwirtz said by focusing on waste reduction, they could double the lifespan of the current landfill, from 60 years to 120.
Hinton Mayor Ian Duncan called the event a ‘historic moment’ for the region.
Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland thanked the representatives of the waste management authority for accepting the mountain park municipality’s application.
“‘Regional collaboration in any effort is great, collectively and individually”, Ireland said. “We don’t see this as filling the landfill, this is really about the new direction that we see the authority taking, which is…waste diversion.”
Yellowhead County Mayor Gerald Soroka said he hopes to eventually reach a level where 90 per cent of waste is recycled, a target that is also set by the City of Vancouver, he said. But the county itself is just getting started.
“We have a long ways to go to get to the 90 per cent,” Soroka said. “A lot of what we’re putting in [to the landfill] could be composted down.” If all county residents started building composts on their properties, they could divert up to 40 per cent of all waste, he noted.
According to an infrastructure services report presented to Hinton town council last year, 12 per cent of the town’s waste is diverted from the landfilI. That compares to a 28 per cent rate in Alberta and 27 per cent in all of Canada.
Dale Woloszyn, Hinton’s public works planning and project manager, said the regional landfill gets about 25,000 tonnes of waste per year. Approximately 40 per cent of this garbage is from Hinton.
Coinciding with the agreement and the waste management authority’s expanded mandate this year, the West Yellowhead Recycles society is offering free recycling trailers, blue recycling bins and configurable recycling containers to events throughout Edson, Hinton and Wildwood. For more information see www.westyellowheadrecycles.ca.